“This early Schoenberg paired aptly with a late work by Heitor Villa-Lobos, The Jet Whistle (Assobio a Játo) from 1950. Adria Sternstein Foster, principal flutist of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, gave a blockbuster performance, taking up the first movement’s melody with silvery clarity. Sternstein Foster met all of the considerable technical demands handily, including perfectly placed high notes in the head-spinning stratosphere.
Her low range, breathy and sultry, was highlighted in the second movement, spun out with impressive breath support over the somber, woody double stops of Carrie Bean Stute’s cello. The soaring flute flourishes of the third movement sparkled with dazzling fingerwork and more pinpoint accuracy off the top of the staff. The pitchless climax, with air blown into the mouthpiece rather than over it, sounded like an ultrasonic jet whine, as Villa-Lobos intended.”